Work in Progress [pics]

[soggybag]

Here's a few images of some work in progress. I had the idea a few months back to make a standard PCB that would fit into a 1590 B sized box and would have connections for all of the standard items (3PDT, LED, Input, Output, Battery and DC jack). I had some of the boards made and here's what I've built so far. These are still work in progress, I need to build some more enclosures, I have enclosures for the BMPs only so far.

Here's a Rebote 2 delay. I built this from the schematic at Tonepad.com, though I used my own layout. I built two of these. This is a great design by Francisco, sounds good with minimal parts.


This is an Ugly Face, from Tim Escobedo's excellent site. I built two of these also, it seemed like the thing to do if I was building one I might as well build a second at the same time.


This is BMP built with a quad transitor array. I built two these. This layout would work with discreet transitors, heck they could even be used in place of the DIP in the same pedal. I should try it out and do side by side comparison...


The last is a Titan Boost/Octave, design by John Hollis. I did two of these but have not added diodes for the octave effect yet. I wanted to have a toggle switch to switch between octave and boost. But of course I have waited about 6 weeks or more for the parts to come from Futurlec (I found some 3PDT toggle switches for $.35). The parts came today so I will be finishing these up pretty soon.


I like working with the everything attahced to a single PCB it makes testing very easy without having wires flying around all over. It makes for a tight fit, but then again anything you fit into 1590 B box is going to be a tight fit.

The height of parts turns out to be an issue. I had to be careful when choosing caps. Since many of the common sizes, from .1uf and up, in mylar can be very large. I found the small boxy polyester and metal film caps to work out well. Electrolytics can also be a problem if they are tall and are placed under a pot. I found some mini electrolyics in the Mouser catalog that are very small the largest being no taller than 5mm to 7mm and about 5mm diameter.

This wasn't always an issue. In some places I just used what I had since the part part was not under a pot or I had room to lay the part on it's side.

With the Rebote 2, which had to be the most complicated (so far, I have been planning to try and squeeze and Easy Vibe onto one of the boards...), the parts would take up almost the entire board so I needed to be careful of part height and lead spacing. I planned everything on paper then mocked up the finished board by placing all of the caps and ICs, resistors are never a problem it's the lead spacing and variation in sizes of caps that make it a problem to plan for them, after looking at the mockup I drew a sketch and revised my design. This mock up step of plang actual parts on the PCBmade the project very successful, afterwards everything went together very predictably. 

[bioroids]

Nice!

what kind of jacks are those??

Miguel

[JimRayden]

But of course I have waited about 6 weeks or more for the parts to come from Futurlec (I found some 3PDT toggle switches for $.35).

Hehe, yes, we all do love this place.   

-----------
Jimbo

[soggybag]

The jacks are Neutrik. Mouser has them and they come with PCB mount style tabs and solder lugs. They seem to work pretty well.

[ninoman123]

Where did you get 3pdts with PCB lugs?

[soggybag]

I used the standard 3PDT stomp switches I got from Aron/Smallbear etc. The holes on the PCB are sized to fit the lugs on teh standard stompswitches.

[ninoman123]

Awesome. Very smart idea. Are you the one that was selling these boards earlier? I might want to check one out.

[soggybag]

Yes I had posted these boards on the Sale/Trade forum. I have some left, if you want to try it out let me know.

[aron]

That's a darn good, smart idea. VERY CLEAN looking.

[KORGULL]

I'd like to see a picture of the underside if possible.

[soggybag]

Thanks for the compliment. I'll try and post some up close and personal pics tomorrow.

[petemoore]

  Tight, Clean, Sweet...I gotta be jealous !!!
  I think you've got it figured out .

[brad]

Awesome boards! 

How do you get everything to line up with the box?

[markusw]

What wire gauge do you use to mount the pots??

Markus

[soggybag]

Hey Brad thanks for the compliement, here's a link to my website I have some notes on how I set up the whole system.

Mark, I think I used 22 solid core wire that I got in bulk at jameco a while ago. I had been thinking about stranded wire but when it showed up it was solid. Since I bought 4 spools I've been using it for some time. I still have plenty to spare.

Korgul, here are a few more pictures of the Rebote 2 up close. Here's a sharper picture of the whole thing from above. I will clip down the leads on the 5V regulator when it comes time to put everything in an enclosure.

Here's a close up of the component side of the board. I put the LED in for testing I may have to adjust it's position a bit and insulate the legs when I figure out where it will go in the enclosure.

A picture of the bottom. You can see all of the standard connections on the board. A ground trace encircles the outside. The three thick horizontal lines on the bottom right connect to the input jack, and the three on the top to the output jack. Between these are two thin traces. The bottom is the effect input and the top is the effect output. The wire in the center goes to the LED. In the lower right corner is the DC jack, battery clip and reverse polarity protection diode connections. The rest of the board is pad per hole perf board with the standard .1" spacing.

Here's another picture of the bottom at an angle. The light on the silvery traces make it hard to photograph.

[KORGULL]

Very cool, thanks for the extra pics and the good info on your website.

[markusw]

Mark, I think I used 22 solid core wire that I got in bulk at jameco a while ago. I had been thinking about stranded wire but when it showed up it was solid. Since I bought 4 spools I've been using it for some time. I still have plenty to spare.

Thanks for your info. I really would love my projects look as professional as yours 

Markus

[smccusker]

wow
those are the most profesh perf builds i am likely to ever see!

alittle ot, but could you please post up some sound samples of the rebote 2?

[soggybag]

I'll do what I can to get some sound clips up but I'm not really set up to record into the computer.

The Rebote 2 sounds like a pretty vanilla delay. I used a 100KB pot for the delay time, the schematic calls for a 50KB, which gives about 1 second or a little more of delay. This pushes the limit of the PT2399 chip a little. The sound is very clean up to about 300ms to 500ms (I'm guessing). After this there is some, not very musical, distortion. I wonder if there is a way to filter some of this out. Maybe this is good for it's own topic, or a search through the archives.

Overall sound is very clean until delay time gets too long. I examined the Tonepad and GeoFex layout and their lead of grounding pin 4 and lug 1 from the dealy pot together to separate the digital ground from the audio ground.

On my layout the FX In and Out are in the center about 5 pins apart. It worked out well to put the TL07 right between these. That way the FX In goes right to the Op-Amp on one side of the chip, the input buffer. The signal goes throug the PT2399 and then goes to the Output buffer on the other side of the TL072 which is right next to the FX out connection.

Of course all of this should be taken with a grain of salt since I webt to art school and have absolutely no education in the subject at all, aside fron the forum and a couple of Forest Mims engineers note books.

[brad]

Hey Brad thanks for the compliement, here's a link to my website I have some notes on how I set up the whole system.

That's quite ingenious. I'm sure they'd be very popular if you opened an online store.